Marlene Dietrich - Biography | The German-Hollywood Connection

German-Hollywood Connection >
MARLENE DIETRICH > DIETRICH in BERLIN > FILMOGRAPHY

UPDATE: Dietrich honored with star in Berlin. See our GW Blog:
Marlene Dietrich stars in Berlin

Film goddess and tarnished angel

“The Germans and I no longer
speak the same language.”

— Marlene Dietrich in 1960 after a sometimes stormy reception
in her native Germany. (Quoted in Blue Angel by Donald Spoto.)

Part of the Berlin Marlene Dietrich Collection was on display in Hollywood a few years ago. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

Starting with her breakthrough role as the sultry, unfaithful cabaret singer Lola Lola in The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel) in 1930, Marlene Dietrich, the “Kraut” (as Ernest Hemingway called his pal), went on to make film history with her alluring looks in films such as Blonde Venus (1932), Destry Rides Again (1939), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). In a varied career of acting, singing, and dancing, Dietrich conquered Las Vegas and Broadway in the 1960s, and went on a world tour in the 1970s. Over a period of several decades Marlene Dietrich was the ultimate Hollywood woman of mystery and a symbol of erotic allure for several generations of moviegoers.

She was born December 27, 1901 in Schöneberg (now part of Berlin) as the second daughter of Louis Erich Otto Dietrich and Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine Felsing. (Most people never knew that Marlene had an older sister, Elisabeth, and they were unlikely to ever learn about it from Marlene.) Herr Dietrich was a police lieutenant, and his newest daughter was born in their modest apartment at Sedanstraße 53 (now Leberstraße 65). The future film star, who would later declare, “When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it,” was given the angelic name Maria Magdalene. Her family called her Lene (LAY-na) or Leni and this may have influenced her when at the age of only thirteen she cut out the center part of “Maria Magdalene” to form the unique name Marlene. She would later use this childhood creation to identify the budding film star who was to be known around the world as Marlene Dietrich.

Marlene’s father died when she was only five (in 1907). She and her sister were raised by her mother. (Wilhelmina was later married briefly to Eduard von Losch, giving rise to biographic confusion over Marlene’s surname, which was always Dietrich.)

The author pays his respects at Dietrich’s resting place in Berlin. The gravestone inscription says, “Here I stand at the marks of my days.”* Nearby lies her mother’s grave. Husband Rudi was buried in California in 1976 — without Marlene in attendance. PHOTO: Cheryl Flippo
Dietrich’s cemetery: 3. Städtischer Friedhof (Waldfriedhof in Friedenau), Stubenrauchstr. 43-45, 12161 Berlin.

From the beginning, Dietrich was a rebel, running counter to what people expected and social mores. Later she was a married woman (until husband Rudi Sieber’s death in 1976) who spent little time with her husband and had numerous affairs with both men and women throughout her film career. Thanks to her daughter Maria (Sieber) Riva (who gives Dietrich a low rating as a mother), Dietrich became a grandmother in 1948, with her still-alluring picture adorning the August 9th cover of Life magazine. She often dressed as a man and sang in films and on stage in a style that could be interpreted as lesbian or bisexual at a time when such things were just not done. (This was no doubt influenced by her life in the wild and woolly Berlin of the 1920s.) But Dietrich, even as a child, had a certain aura and strength of character that often made people overlook her flaws and excesses.

*Dietrich’s gravestone quotation is adapted from...

“Abschied vom Leben” (“Farewell to Life”)
by Carl Theodor Körner (1791-1813)
A sonnet written during the night of June 17-18, 1813 as
the poet lay wounded in war and expecting to die.

First verse in German and English:

Die Wunde brennt, die bleichen Lippen beben,
Ich fühl’s an meines Herzens mattem Schlage,
Ich stehe an den Marken meiner Tage!
Gott, wie Du willst! Dir hab ich mich ergeben.

My deep wound burns; my pale lips quake in death
I feel my fainting heart resign its strife,
And reaching now the limit of my life,
Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath!

After her arrival in Hollywood with Blue Angel director Josef von Sternberg, the two made a series of successful films together. Dietrich starred in such notable films as Morocco (1930), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), and The Devil is a Woman (1935). (See Dietrich’s full filmography.) After the two went their separate ways, Dietrich had a rough patch before regaining her footing once again as “Frenchy” in Destry Rides Again (1939) opposite Jimmy Stewart.

Marlene Dietrich autographs the cast on the leg of Tech 4 Earl E. McFarland at an American hospital in Belgium, where she was entertaining the troops in 1944. PHOTO: National Archives

As a USO entertainer in World War II, often in uniform and near the front, Marlene displayed her devotion to her adopted country. (Dietrich became a US citizen in 1939.) She seemed to thrive on entertaining the troops and cavorting about in uniform. But this patriotic act was perceived by many in her native land as treason (ignoring the fact that Dietrich was anti-Nazi, not anti-German). In 1947 Marlene Dietrich received the US Medal of Freedom for her war efforts.

In 1960, for the first time since leaving Germany 30 years before, she performed on stage in her hometown of Berlin. She drew a mixed reaction of adulation and “Marlene Go Home!” As a result, she firmly refused to return to Germany until after her death. (“The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.”)

The Marlene-Dietrich-Platz street sign in Berlin. Photo © H. Flippo

All this colored several attempts to honor the exiled actress by naming a Berlin street for her in the late 1990s. Even her home district of Schöneberg refused to rename a street for her! That only became possible with the construction of the new Potsdamer Platz complex, where a small square (rather than a street) was officially dubbed Marlene-Dietrich-Platz in February 1998. (See photo.) On the occasion of Dietrich’s 100th birthday in 2001, the Berlin government officially apologized for its past snubs, but amazingly there were still protests when the Berlin-born star was postumously made an honorary citizen of Berlin on May 16, 2002.

In her seventies, problems with those famous Dietrich legs, other health concerns, and obsessive vanity led her to withdraw from public view. Her last stage appearance was in Sydney, Australia (where she fell and broke her left leg) in September 1975. Dietrich made her last film appearance in Just a Gigolo (1979) at the age of 77 — lured back into a studio by $250,000 for two half-days work. Thirteen years later, a sad recluse, alcoholic, and a prisoner of her own legend, Marlene Dietrich died in Paris at her Avenue Montaigne apartment in 1992. She is buried in her native Berlin. Her vast memorabilia collection was acquired by the city-state of Berlin in 1993 for 8 million marks ($5 million). Many objects from the collection are now housed in a special exhibit at the Film Museum (Deutsche Kinemathek) in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz in the German capital city.

NEXT > Dietrich in Berlin

FILMS > Dietrich’s Movies and more

MORE > German-Hollywood Connections

DVD > Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection - Five of her films: Morocco,
Blonde Venus, The Devil Is a Woman, Flame of New Orleans, Golden Earrings

Related German Way Pages

Dietrich’s Movies - Filmography
Ufa and the Babelsberg studios - Dietrich made The Blue Angel for Ufa near Berlin.
Fritz Lang - Dietrich made several films with this Austrian-born director
Marlene Dietrich stars in Berlin (GW Expat Blog)
Billy Wilder Filmography - Dietrich made two films directed by Wilder.
Famous German Movies - Films from Germany have made their mark on world cinema—and influenced Hollywood.
Germans (and Others) in Hollywood - About the three main waves of Germanic immigration to Hollywood
Berlin City Guide - Sights, history
German Cinema - From the German Way book
Famous Germans, Austrians and Swiss
Famous Graves - The graves and cemeteries of the famous